Journos Pan N.Y. Post Coverage of Kruger

Journalists on the NY1’s Reporter’s Roundtable Friday had some objections to the way State Senator Carl Kruger was covered by the New York Post which said on their front page that the lawmaker was not only accused of corruption, but “gay” and “closeted” too. The person who allegedly helped Kruger pocket the kick-back money is a doctor that The Post claims is his lover.

“To to establish a connection is one thing. To out the guy is another” said YNN host Liz Benjamin. “Why does it ever matter?” she asked later.

“His relationship to his alleged lover matters,” said Daily News City Hall bureau Chief Adam Lisberg. But he noted that the NY Post story “didn’t go there.” Lisberg said he was “glad the Daily News didn’t make that leap.”

Lisberg added, “People have accused [Kruger] of being gay. He’s denied it. Where do you go without proof otherwise?”

Capital New York’s Tom McGeveran made a similar point, saying The Post threw around the eye-catching words, but didn’t have as much detail on that part of the story as the New York Times and Daily News,which, McGeveran said did a better job of helping us “understand what the relevance of it all might be.”

The other two members of the roundtable – Edward Isaac-Dovere of City Hall News and Milton Allimadi of Black Star News – agreed that the NY Post story didn’t do as good a job of driving home the relevance of Kruger’s sexuality to the corruption case. The Post, for their part, was not represented on the roundtable.